Tidings of Cuttooth and Joy wrote:This got a pretty good write-up on Remap, although it seems to be quite different to the previous Inkle games I loved, 80 Days and Heaven's Vault.
https://remapradio.com/articles/highland-song-review/Both of those games were designed with enough incentive to make it rewarding to replay its branching narrative several times. I get the impression that isn't the purpose of this game.
That's a great article, thanks for sharing.
I really like this game and am glad I bought it.
I would say it definitely
is meant to be played more than once. It has branching routes to the destination in ways that significantly change your journey, and is almost a rogue-like in that each time you play you keep items and maps of secret routes to aid the next trip.
The destination isn't really the point though, I've made Moira's journey 5 times now and only twice in time for Beltame (which occurs after 7 in-game days). Even if you don't make it in time for Beltame you carry on taking your sweet time exploring and journeying your way to the lighthouse end point, and not treating it as a speedrun from the off is probably a better way to enjoy it.
I've definitely warmed to it more and more with each playthrough. You for sure have to learn its strange cocktail of systems and things going in, and that took me more than my first playthrough to acclimatise - it's quite impressively weird to be honest, between its stamina systems and survival sleeping and tricksy landscape navigation and its very un-game-y logic to its pathfinding which feel more organically unpredictable than nearly anything else I can think of. On top of all this is Moira's self-chat and then night-time remembrances of letters to her Uncle and then also the odd bit of some older, mythic thing that unfolds in snippets too. Never mind the sudden rhythm action sections!
But it's really grown on me. At first I found its animation oddly janky and Moira's constant written thoughts oddly 'noisy' (even though mostly silent) and the Uncle's voiceover silly in its breathy seriousness about the Ancient Stories Hidden In These Hills and so on. And there were lots of small irritations (some inelegant UI like the initially hard to discern Y/X buttons in the rhythm sections and so on). And a lot of that still applies!
And yet I've really enjoyed replaying each time, with its nudges towards different routes, with the gentle drip of secrets that genuinely surprise, and with my increasing familiarity with the routes and its unqiue rhythms of play (and I suppose the pressure relieved after making it to Beltane on my second run so having accomplished the 'true' ending). And across the treks I've seen very different lightings and weatherscapes and moods and sometimes it really does look gorgeous. And though the game
looks like its made up of these flat panes that you advance 'up' through into the horizon and towards the sea, that's not actually how it plays at all - I've never played a 2D game like it. Also I can hammer B to skip through much of the Earnest Story Chatter.
I don't know about 'proper' Scottish (whatever that means) but I've been impressed at the variety of recognisable landscape textures and phenomena depicted, the just-so of purple heath against a field fence and so on, but also the detail of the paraphernalia like scraps of map and so on.
Lots of the weird frictions in general are definitely intentional, and definitely mean that it leaves an impression instead of slipping down too smoothly without leaving a mark. And the game is always kept alive by feeling crisp and sprightly in the hands - some stuff like skipping across stone-tips with the sound of boots on rock is a treat, and there's a good use of rumble for all the crumbles of climbing and slipping on rocks. I wish more games had the snappy zoom-in/out buttons that make for some great images and also just another thing to play about with in general. And even though the folk music rhythm sections (and repetition of them) get a bit much, they're still worth their inclusion even if just for the brill guitar-strum rumble effect!
Also also I know I probably sound like That Guy Who's Only Ever Listened To One Folk-style Song Before but some of the piano-cello stuff sounds like Braid in a good way.
Anyway keeping it general as most haven't played yet, and keen to hear thoughts of those that do. But it's been a grower for me and now I'm a fan.
